ROMAN PAVEMENTS. 2$ I 



cathedral. It was, doubtless, the ancestor of what may be seen 

 on the walls of Christian catacombs, and in the tesselated floor 

 of S. Orso at Ravenna, where the cantharus has become a 

 chalice, and the doves on its rim are not votaries of Venus, but 

 ransomed souls. 



The cantharus, however, was a drinking-vessel, a tankard, 

 sacred to Bacchus, usually but not always with two handles, and 

 rarely if ever made of earthenware. Silenus, sleeping off his 

 debauch, is found with a heavy cantharus hanging by a worn 

 handle. Et gtavis attrita pendebat cantherus ansd pendebat cantharus 

 ansd. (Virgil, Ed. VI., 17.) 



Hence it is better for us to use the less restricted term 

 amphora, a word contracted from a^Kpo^s " having two 

 handles." Such a vessel in the Olga Road tesselation I have 

 called a symbol of Fecundity. Perhaps all statements of that 

 kind should be accompanied by proof. Omitted then, I supply 

 it now. On the fagade of the very ancient stone tombs of 

 Phrygia it is common to find sculptured in relief two animals 

 facing each other, like heraldic supporters, which are sphinxes, 

 lions, or bulls, and between them is a symbol which is always in 

 one or other of three forms a pillar, a phallus, or an amphora 

 (see figures I. and II.). 



The animals are the guardians of the symbol. The require- 

 ments of art, as well as the limitations of sculpture in relief, 

 make them indeed look towards the symbol rather than towards 

 any approaching adversary. But they are no more about to eat 

 of the pillar than to drink from the vase. " It is a double- 

 handled vessel," say Messieurs Perrot and Chipiez, "of simple 

 and elegant design, and there are numbers in our museums 

 labelled J/alo-Graco, whose contour is precisely similar" (Art in 

 Phrygia, p. 130). Can we doubt that it represents Fecundity in 

 its feminine aspect, as our Mother the Earth, or that the pillar 

 represents Fecundity in its masculine aspect, as our Father the 

 Sun. But Fecundity means Life, and therefore necessarily, in 

 some sort, the Renewal of Life. And we may be sure that under- 

 lying this presentment, this guarding of the symbol, was the 



